ADA GALLERY

john pollard, ada gallery (richmond,va)
& mulherin pollard (nyc)
Asea, Aloof : Matthew Fisher   OPENS THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 6-8PM ADA gallery’s  NYC sister gallery, Mulherin + Pollard is pleased to present “Asea, Aloof,” an exhibition of recent paintings and drawings by Matthew Fisher. Fisher is a Brooklyn, NY-based artist who makes stylized paintings that utilize symbolic placement, pattern, line, and a sense of the lasting touch of man on landscapes that reference universal timing, placement, and a frozen sense of now. Fisher’s latest works depict the sea as a contemplative space detached from human presence and often from any sense of land itself as well. Here, narrative is replaced by a concern with the quieter drama of the sea itself-the motion of its ripples, the fleeting nature of its form and appearance, and its interactions and relationship with light, space, the drifting clouds, and the passing of time. Fisher was educated at the Columbus College of Art and Design and received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2000. He has had numerous solo exhibitions including at Heskin Contemporary, New York (2010); RARE Gallery, New York (2009); ADA Gallery, Richmond, VA (2009 and 2006); and the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA (2006); and has shown extensively in group exhibitions in the United States and abroad. He was awarded a Fellowship in Painting from the New York Foundation for the Arts in 2010.  MULHERIN + POLLARD  187 Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002  212.967.0045

Asea, Aloof : Matthew Fisher  

OPENS THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 6-8PM

ADA gallery’s  NYC sister gallery, Mulherin + Pollard is pleased to present “Asea, Aloof,” an exhibition of recent paintings and drawings by Matthew Fisher. Fisher is a Brooklyn, NY-based artist who makes stylized paintings that utilize symbolic placement, pattern, line, and a sense of the lasting touch of man on landscapes that reference universal timing, placement, and a frozen sense of now.

Fisher’s latest works depict the sea as a contemplative space detached from human presence and often from any sense of land itself as well. Here, narrative is replaced by a concern with the quieter drama of the sea itself-the motion of its ripples, the fleeting nature of its form and appearance, and its interactions and relationship with light, space, the drifting clouds, and the passing of time.

Fisher was educated at the Columbus College of Art and Design and received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2000. He has had numerous solo exhibitions including at Heskin Contemporary, New York (2010); RARE Gallery, New York (2009); ADA Gallery, Richmond, VA (2009 and 2006); and the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA (2006); and has shown extensively in group exhibitions in the United States and abroad. He was awarded a Fellowship in Painting from the New York Foundation for the Arts in 2010.
 

MULHERIN + POLLARD  187 Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002 

212.967.0045

Sin Titulo : Cliff Hengst & Scott Hewicker
 
 OPENS THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 6-8PM


In Sin Titulo, San Francisco artists Scott Hewicker and Clifford Hengst explore the nether worlds between sublime mystery and lurid banality. In drawing, painting, videos and performance, both artists mine sparsely populated interiors and haunted objects that reflect on the anticipatory charge of discreet physical contact through experience, memory, and fantasy.

Hengst’s watercolor and ink paintings on paper are based on dim light and shadows, and places people hide themselves both physically and emotionally. He investigates the darkness and mundane allure of anonymous settings and the strange and silent waiting game of boredom and promise.

Hewicker’s acrylic on canvas paintings take on a wide breadth of subject and styles from muted objects and abstracted figurations, to blurry landscapes and soft focus interiors. His new paintings concentrate on the empty low-resolution environments of bedrooms, bathrooms and various public and outdoor spaces emphasizing a compulsive ambiguity between public and private.

Cliff Hengst has shown at Gallery 16, SF; Mariella Arts, Milan; Test-Site, Austin,  TX; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF; Second Floor Projects, SF, and LACE, LA.

Scott Hewicker has shown at Jack Hanley Gallery, SF; Galleri Christina Wilson, Copenhagen; Deitch Projects NY, University Art Museum, Berkeley, CA; New Image Arts, LA and Second Floor Projects, SF. He co-curated the exhibition, Hauntology at the Berkeley Art Museum with Lawrence Rinder in 2010.

Hengst and Hewicker will collaborate on a performance piece during the opening. They have previously collaborated together for the book, Good Times, Bad Trips published by Gallery 16 Editions in 2007. This is both artists debut show for the gallery.

MULHERIN + POLLARD  187 Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002 

212.967.0045

Bernard Martin: From the Landfills of My Mind OPENING MAY 3, 2012 ADA GALLERY 228 W.BROAD ST. RICHMOND, VA. 23220    In his large-scale oil and acrylic paintings, Martin juxtaposes recreations of the magazine and comic book covers with images drawn from art historical and literary sources, creating a dialogue across the lines of high art and pop culture in which one picture plays off another, extending and complicating their possible meanings and suggesting rich levels of complexity not overtly discernible or inherent in each image alone.   Martin, 76, is a Professor Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University where he taught from 1962–92 and was the First Chairman of the Painting & Printmaking Department from 1967–69. He has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout his multi-decade career including three separate traveling shows of his work organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (in 1973–74; 1975–76; and 1996–97), and a previous show at ADA Gallery (2010). His work has also appeared in over 200 group shows nationally and internationally since 1969. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants including two Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowships and a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Arts Fellowship (1995).   Martin lives and works in Richmond, VA.

Bernard Martin: From the Landfills of My Mind

OPENING MAY 3, 2012

ADA GALLERY

228 W.BROAD ST.

RICHMOND, VA. 23220 

 

In his large-scale oil and acrylic paintings, Martin juxtaposes recreations of the magazine and comic book covers with images drawn from art historical and literary sources, creating a dialogue across the lines of high art and pop culture in which one picture plays off another, extending and complicating their possible meanings and suggesting rich levels of complexity not overtly discernible or inherent in each image alone.

 

Martin, 76, is a Professor Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University where he taught from 1962–92 and was the First Chairman of the Painting & Printmaking Department from 1967–69. He has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout his multi-decade career including three separate traveling shows of his work organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (in 1973–74; 1975–76; and 1996–97), and a previous show at ADA Gallery (2010). His work has also appeared in over 200 group shows nationally and internationally since 1969. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants including two Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowships and a National Endowment for the Arts Visual Arts Fellowship (1995).

 

Martin lives and works in Richmond, VA.

currently showing at ADA gallery in Richmond, Va. : 

Gian Pierroti & Alan Ludwig 

FUTURE PWR DWN = PWR UP

more pics of Gian’s MOBILE FIRING UNIT

Gian Pierroti’s mobile kiln / oven, which is part of PWR DWN = PWR UP at ADA Gallery in Richmond

Gian Pierroti’s mobile kiln / oven, which is part of PWR DWN = PWR UP at ADA Gallery in Richmond

FUTURE PWR DWN = PWR UP

Gian Pierotti and Allan Ludwig:
FUTURE PWR DWN = PWR UP
Opening Thursday March 15th, 6–8
ADA Gallery, 228 West Broad Street, Richmond, Va.

Gian Pierotti and Allan Ludwig are artists dealing with shared concerns regarding our unstable societal systems and the need to prepare for a collapse they see as inevitable. They seek refuge through their works, hoping to provide alternatives and create constructive visions for the future.

Pierotti recasts the traditional medium of clay into a wildly inventive practice of ceramics, producing his playfully eccentric takes on everyday objects. His sculptures (tents, a bread oven on wheels, a hook on chains, knives, barrels) suggest the imaginary artifacts of survival tools to be used during some unnamed future calamity.

Ludwig explores the possibilities presented by grid systems to make sense of the world by remapping and rebuilding the everyday objects and images around us. Through an understanding of the foundations of form by means of the grid, he suggests that we can visualize the potential for revolutionary new systems and structures.

Both artists employ elements of fantasy and the speculative nature of science fiction into their work. Through these humble building blocks of a proposed future, they reimagine the familiar and suggest a reconsideration and remaking of society and the world itself.

Gian Pierotti was born in 1975 in Utah and raised in the mountainous regions of the West. Glimmers of a future artistic calling were present in his youthful fabrications of make-believe weapons from the vines and brambles in his surrounding environs. More recently he participated in a Dungeons & Dragons-themed show Doom Slangers at Allegra La Viola Gallery, New York, as well as receiving his MFA in the Crafts Department of Virginia Commonwealth University.

Born in 1977 in Orlando, Florida, Allan Ludwig’s artistic career was launched when he won a Wheel of Fortune board game in a coloring contest from the local newspaper. He later earned a BFA in painting from Brigham Young University in 2004 and his MFA in painting from Claremont Graduate University in 2007. His work has been published in New American Paintings. He is presently immersed in reading 20 years worth of Madman comics.

http://www.adagallery.com/

untitled pencil drawings by a young George Kuchar. circa 1956.

Mulherin + Pollard
187 Chrystie St

Now through March 25, 2012

George Kuchar: Snapshots & Twisted Tales    

Exhibition Dates: March 1–25, 2012

George Kuchar, the pioneering filmmaker known for his love of swirling high camp, his delirious parodies of golden-era Hollywood melodramas and B-movie horror, and his films’ gently perverse and humorous probings into the pathos of the human psyche, was also prolific as a comic artist, painter, and photographer. 

In the 1970s, Kuchar actively returned to his childhood interestsin comics, and the current exhibition Snapshots & Twisted Tales will focus on the graphic work that he produced during this period and published in Arcade: The Comics Revue, a magazine begun with the noted underground artists Art Spiegelman and Bill Griffith, neighbors of Kuchar’s in San Francisco. Arcade included work by a variety of other artists, including George’s twin brother Mike, as well as R. Crumb. The show will also feature a few of George’s early drawings—cartoons made in the mid 1950s when he was a student studying commercial art at the School of Industrial Art (now the High School of Art and Design) in Manhattan. These drawings prefigure some of his signature future themes and preoccupations centering on food, heartthrobs, and the struggles and mortifications of everyday living. The exhibition will also include a selection of his photographs—portraits and personal snapshots of friends and various locales encountered on his many travels.

He has recently garnered new attention and recognition in the contemporary film and art worlds marked by his retrospective exhibition at MoMA PS1, “George Kuchar: Pagan Rhapsodies,” as the subject of a recent article in the February Artforum, and his inclusion in the forthcoming 2012 Whitney Biennial (at the Whitney Museum of American Art, March 1–May 27, 2012), which will be showing a selection of his Weather Diaries, a series of video works produced between 1986 and 2011. 

 

Kuchar produced many paintings, works on paper, comics, and photographs during his lifetime, some of which were featured in the recent show at PS1. His works are represented by the ADA Gallery of Richmond, Virginia, whose director and owner, John Pollard, isalso co-owner of Mulherin & Pollard, ADA’s sister gallery in New York City.

With a catalog that includes over 200 films and videos, George Kuchar’s artwork has been recognized through countless awards and grants, including The National Endowment for the Arts, The Eureka Fellowship Program, and a Ford Foundation Fellowship from United States Artists. He is the recipient of the prestigious Maya Deren Award for Independent Film and Video Artists from the American Film Institute, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Award for Independent/Experimental Film and Video. Kuchar’s work has screened around the globe in cinemas, festivals, and major museums, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Pompidou Center in Paris.  

His films include Hold Me While I’m Naked (1966), selected by the Village Voice as No. 52 on its list of the 100 Best Films of the 20th Century; Eclipse Of the Sun Virgin (1967); and I, An Actress (1977), selected by the Library of Congress this past year for inclusion to the National Film Registry. His video works include Weather Diaries (1986–2011) and Secrets of the Shadow World (1989–99).

Mulherin + Pollard 187 Chrystie St., New York, NY  10002. www.mulherinpollard.com